The New York Times passed over a white male worker with the right chops for an editor’s job — instead choosing a less qualified multiracial woman, a federal watchdog claimed Tuesday, suing the Gray Lady.
The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission accused the newspaper of breaching civil-rights law by discriminating against the unnamed male candidate based on his race or sex, according to the agency’s complaint filed in Manhattan federal court.
Nikita Stewart — the Times’ then-real-estate editor who has since been promoted to metro editor — “deviated from normal hiring protocol” in January 2025 to hire someone without experience editing real-estate coverage to work as her deputy, the suit alleged.
The white man who was bypassed for the gig had “considerable experience with real estate news,” which had been a supposed requirement included on the public job listing for the position, the EEOC claimed in the reverse-discrimination lawsuit.
The Times’ hiring decision came amid a broader push at the paper to add more non-white managers in leadership positions.
The paper in 2021 developed a “Call To Action,” which stated that “people of color—and particularly women of color—remain notablyunderrepresented in its leadership,” the suit said.
Times spokeswoman Danielle Rhoades Ha dismissed the lawsuit Tuesday as a “politically motivated” case brought by a Trump administration, which that has frequently clashed with the outlet.
“Our employment practices are merit-based and focused on recruiting and promoting the best talent in the world,’’ Ha said in a statement. “We will defend ourselves vigorously.
“Neither race nor gender played a role in this decision – we hired the most qualified candidate, and she is an excellent editor,” Ha said of the deputy editor, who has not been identified, either.
But the suit urged a federal judge to order the Times to enact policies that “provide equal employment opportunities for individuals regardless of race or sex,” and to award the unnamed allegedly stiffed editor punitive damages.
The case comes amid a series of attacks by the Trump administration on so-called “diversity, equity and inclusion” initiatives at businesses.
Trump has separately filed a $15 billion defamation lawsuit against the Times and publisher Penguin Random House for publishing the book “Lucky Loser: How Donald Trump Squandered His Father’s Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success” by Times journalists Susanne Craig and Russ Buettner.
